"I've got to go there," said Bud, with simple dignity.
"That is an undertaking!" she said, gayly. "When do you intend to start? and what is the object of the journey, I wonder?" She felt sure now that Bud was little less than an idiot.
But Bud had another question to ask. His face was grave, almost dismayed. "Across the ocean!" That sentence appalled. He had heard of the ocean, and of a storm on it, and a shipwreck. A wandering sailor once told in his hearing a fearful story of wreck and peril. Yet, be it recorded that the boy, though appalled, did not for one moment recede from his fixed resolved to start, and go as far as he could. That Comforter he meant to find. It had taken such hold of his heart that he knew he could never give it up again. This was his next timidly-put question:
"I never did," she answered, laughing still, and very curious now to know what queer project poor Bud had on his mind. "Why do you want to go, Bud?"
"I want to go after Him who said He would comfort me. 'Ye shall be comforted in Jerusalem,' that is what it says, and _she_ said it meant me, and little Jack went, I make sure, and I mean to go. I _must_ go."
But before that answer, Alice Ansted stood dumb. She had never been so amazed in her life! What did the fellow mean? What could have so completely turned his foolish brain? "If this is the outcome of Miss Benedict's efforts, she ought to know it at once, before the poor idiot concludes his career in a lunatic asylum."
This was her rapid thought, but aloud she said, at last:
"I don't know what you are talking about, Bud. You have some wild idea that does not seem to be doing you any good. I would advise you to drop it and think about the horses; they are your best friends."
"I can't drop it," said Bud, simply; "I read the verse in the Bible; I promised I would, and I did, and I know all about it, and I want to have it; _she_ said it was for me."
"What is the verse?" and Miss Alice sat down on a carriage-stool to listen.
Bud repeated with slow and solemn emphasis the words which were now so familiar to his ear: "As one whom his mother comforteth, so will I comfort you: and ye shall be comforted in Jerusalem."
"I know about mothers," he explained. "There was little Jack's mother, and she used to say to him just that, 'Mother will comfort you,' and she did. And this one I make sure is Jesus, because _she_ said he wanted me to go where little Jack is, and I guess he means me, because I feel as if he did, and I'm going to Jerusalem, if it is across two oceans."
